The Equestrian Gaming League

“Horror?” Midnight asked as they all sat in the lounge with Firewire and Night Coder, who were sitting on the guest couch in the center of the room in front of the very large television. They both held mugs in their hands and sipped them as they nodded. “Your idea for a leadership contest is a survival horror game.” The gray bat pony asked as she gazed at the two of them, then looked toward Ember, who also nodded. “Have you been huffing chemicals or something? That’s a terrible idea!”

“What’s so terrible about that?” Prisma asked from the kitchen as she brewed more tea for everyone. “You heard them. Not only are we going to be going through a haunted house, but we’ll be leading our own people through a maze. Not only does it test our gaming skills, but also our abilities to manage our people and resources. It’s actually pretty brilliant.”

“Oh, come on, you had to say it.” Twin said as she took a gulp of her tea and rolled her eyes, looking at Ember, who beamed with pride. “Alright, so who’s going to be on whose team?”

“That doesn’t matter quite as much as our incoming messages.” Dusk interrupted people before they started talking about which team they wanted to be on. “Yeah, amazingly going from the lowest rank in the EGL to becoming near the top 100 kind of draws a lot of attention. Have none of you noticed the fact that our inbox has been constantly beaten and battered for the past two days?”

There was a sudden silence between all of them. The only sound that could be heard was a solitary giggle. They all looked at Vera, who was on her phone.

“Yeah you can come on…” Vera started but then paused as she saw everyone was looking at her. “Just… yeah, come on over. I’ll talk to you soon.” She said as her eyes widened and she stared back at them. “Yes, they’re all here. You’ll see them. Bye.” She hung up her phone and giggled nervously. “Sorry.”

Dusk gave her a look that made it look like his brain was rebooting. Then he shook his head and got his thoughts back online.

“Alright, well, my point is that we are on the cusp of something great and I really don’t want to ruin this. Otherwise, I’ll have to go back to the trio and under the tyrannical rule of…” Dusk stopped immediately as he saw the bloodshot glare of Midnight sitting across from him. “Mediocre Hooftube comments…” He chuckled with nervous shivers as her glare turned into a scowl.

“I agree wholeheartedly.” Twin said, drawing more attention. “Either we get this group together as a team, or we go our separate ways.” They let that sink in for a moment. Then there were a few deep breaths before they all began to nod.

“So, what’s this game like?” Mila asked, leaning toward the two programmers who looked at one another.

“Well,” Night Coder said, grinning as she thought for a moment. “I suppose we should just go ahead and show you rather than jabbering on about it.”

—----------

They were broken up into two teams. Prisma led Dusk, Twin, and Mila while Night Coder acted as their guide. Midnight led Ember, Vera, and Tessa, who became something of a late entry since she was Vera’s guest, and Firewire was their guide. Each group entered a different wing of the hotel, almost complete opposite of each other. The hotel had two floors and each floor had four very large sections. It was also dark, desolate and had very few working light bulbs. What light there was only took up small portions. The hallways were filled with wreckage, strewn out luggage and the walls had sections missing. The strongest light came from the full moon outside the windows, which were mostly broken and/or boarded up.

“So,” Vera looked around them with her hippogryph friend holding onto her arm with both of her own as they walked through the hallway. “What’s the objective of this game?”

“You pretty much find a whole collection of books.” Fire said as he shined his flashlight slowly around the hallway, showing the level of detail they put into this whole place. There was a broken ice machine on one side of the hallway, while the other side had a hollowed out vending machine that once had soda inside. The place wasn’t completely wrecked, but it certainly hadn’t been kept very well. “There are two sets of books, each with six volumes, and you are looking for the red books. The other team is looking for the blue books.”

From beyond the gloom of the partially lit hallway, there was a bonging noise, slow and rhythmic. It was like water pipes that fed into a huge vat in spurts. It was on going, and cut into the silence like a slow-moving knife.

“You ready to start the search, Midnight?” Firewire asked, causing her to look at him, doing a double take.

“Hm? What? Oh, yes, I am ready.” She said, trying her very best to hide the quiver in her voice as they made their way through the halls of that desolate place. “Are you going to be leaving us?” She asked, making him look back at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, but I’ll still be on your voice comm, so I can help you to some degree. Just try to use my help sparingly.” He said, seeing that the look of worry did not leave her face.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Ember asked from behind Midnight, causing her to shake the look from her face and go stony.

“Of course, I am. I’ll be right as rain. Just… stay close, okay?” Midnight said, slowing down to get more beside Ember as he nodded. He even patted her shoulder gently as a sign of reassurance. She nodded her thanks back at him and took a deep breath. This seemed to comfort her more as they passed through a cross hallway. It was decorated with very aged pictures of homesteads that looked more like pictures of ghosts with how faded they were. It gave them a faded, otherworldly feel.

“Alright, so one decision and then I turn you all loose. Straight ahead or left or right?” He said, standing in the middle of the cross halls, moving his flashlight as he mentioned the directions.

Midnight looked down all three of the halls. None of them looked hospitable but then again, she figured that was par for the course. Two of them were completely dark on the left and right, but straight ahead, there was at least a light working a strobe effect. She now knew why there was an epilepsy warning as the game loaded up on their headsets. The bat pony sighed and nodded forward.

“Let’s keep going.” She said, and her group hummed their approval, not looking forward to navigating gloom-ridden hallways. Everything was so worn. The carpet looked stained all over, the wall plaster had holes in it while the wall paper was peeling in multiple places. The light they passed caused Midnight and Vera to squint their eyes away from it as Firewire stopped suddenly.

“Fire?” Vera asked, wondering what happened, if he was lagging or something. Then the light went out for a heartbeat and when it came back, he was gone.

“Whoa!” Midnight jumped as she went back a few steps and Ember held onto her while all of them made their own startled noises. “You asshole!” She shouted into her comm device. Their audio turned on to laughter.

“Sorry, but I had to do that. I’ve been wanting to do something like that for a long time.” Fire said as he calmed down a bit. “Anyway, I’m here to help whenever you need me. If you get lost and find yourself in the weeds, just let me know and I’ll do what I can to get you out of the boring zone. It’s pretty easy to get turned around in this game. Good luck.”

Midnight sighed and turned on her flashlight, motioning for them to follow.

—---------

Prisma opened one of the doors that was opened a crack. She moved her flashlight to her blindspots like she was an agent with a gun, however, she didn’t have one. The room was mostly empty, aside from a chair covered in filthy linen. The rainbow maned unicorn was breathing hard as she kept her eyes looking around. One door was closed inside the room, while the other was most assuredly a bathroom. Part of the carpet was burned, as was a large section of the lower wall on the far side. There was a large black pile of ash, wood and cushion, which could only be the charred remains of a bed.

“Um, Prisma?” Twin asked, causing her to look back at the ice blue unicorn. “Can we go in now?”

“Oh, right, yes.” Prisma said in a somewhat jumpy voice. She took a deep breath and moved into the room. Twin, Dusk and Mila walked into the room behind her and peered around the corners, making sure there weren’t any spooks or vampires or whatever. The room was very dark, and the window was thoroughly boarded up. “Alright, remember, blue books. Check in everything. If you need to be out of eyeshot, bring a buddy.”

“Well, at least you’re not telling us to split up.” Dusk said as he picked the filthy linen up from the chair, shining a flashlight down underneath it. He grimaced as he saw the chair cushions were wide open, and burned to a light brown underneath. He wondered what the point of draping a sheet over it was if it was already lightly roasted. “It doesn’t look like it’s in here.”

The door slammed! This caused all of them to jump and Twin to give a yelp in surprise as all of their flashlights turned to the door.

“Come on! Really? A door slamming jump scare?” Prisma said, sighing and rubbing her temple with one hand. “I thought this game was supposed to be scary, not panic-inducing blood pressure.” She took a deep breath, and everyone else got their nerves about them once again. “Alright, they’re not here, let’s move.” She said as she turned toward the door once again, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t locked.

“Wait a tick.” Mila said as they walked toward the door. She looked to the right and saw that the bathroom was still there. Somehow, it was actually not nightmarish. It was more just a bit untidy. The sink was still intact, though it leaned to the side on its small base. The shower curtain was probably the worst thing about it, being ripped off at some point with only shreds left on the curtain rings that were hooked onto a rusted rail up above. The abyssinian cat girl walked into the bathroom, keeping her flashlight trained as she approached a toilet that still stood, but was only full of broken porcelain rather than water. Then she turned her flashlight to the bathtub, and was startled to find that it was filled to the brim with a black tar. She furrowed her brow at this sight. That was when the black, viscous goo began to bubble.

“Oh, bloody hell…” Mila said as she began to see something ascend slowly from the tar. The thing was skinny, but it had wide, blank, white eyes and a mouth that seemed to stretch to unnatural lengths in a silent shriek. It had no legs, it had roots covered in the syrupy pitch black fluid and its arms were far longer than they should have been. “Fuck me dead!” She shouted, frozen in place as the hellish creature turned its solid white orbs onto her.

“Mila!” Prisma shouted. “Get out of there!” She took a step into the bathroom and reached for the cat girl.

As the thing began to reach for her, she was broken from her lull in thought and turned, running in a flash. Prisma got out of her way as the thing’s roots stretched even farther and faster than any of them expected. It inhaled a gigantic, sputtering breath as it reached the doorway, but Twin was there. She ducked down quickly, grabbing the door and slamming it as hard as she could. The creature’s head was caught in the doorway and there was an audible crunch, then a snap as its neck was crushed and its head rolled onto the floor.

Mila’s breath was going a mile a minute as her chest rose and fell in heaves. Her heart was pounding so loud, it was beating against her ears as she gazed at the black head with purely white eyes glaring off into dead space. Slowly, it began to turn into something of a gray ash as it dried completely up before their eyes. As it dried, it crumbled, and so did the door. As the door crumbled away, the bathroom was left in complete shambles as most of its contents turned into ash. The toilet, sink and the bathtub became hunks of debris. However, within the ruins of the bathtub, there was something that stood out within her vision. As the room’s door opened to all of them, they stood in silence as they were getting over the shock of the whole situation.

“Found one of the books.” Mila said as she walked into the room and picked up a blue tome.

“Hey! Congratulations!” Night Coder said in the communication device. “One down! Five to go!”

Dusk wrapped an arm around Mila as she came out, seeing she was a little distraught from the experience. She managed a tiny smile for him and nodded her thanks. Then she sighed. “Brilliant…”

—----------

Midnight’s hair was disheveled, her head was beginning to ache and her heartbeat was going a mile a minute. So far, they’d managed to find two books. Both times, something horrible and shocking had happened.

“Midnight? Are you–” Ember started, but the bat pony held up a finger to shush him before he could go any further with that statement.

“Just… catching my breath, Ember. I’ll be fine.” Midnight gathered herself, scratching her mane as she looked up to see Vera and Tessa both wearing similar expressions. “I’m fine! Just go on ahead, I’ll take up the rear guard for a while.”

They began walking through the hotel hallway once again. It was dark, as normal, and the eerie creaks and sounds happened so frequently, Midnight simply started ignoring them. The purple haired bat tried her best to fix her hair but after a moment of finding knots, she gave up on that. She’d just enjoy a long shower later.

The creaks started happening again, this time in a bit more quick succession behind her. She turned around and shined the light from left to right, then she looked down to see there was a cat statue behind her. The stone cat was sitting, staring at her with an unamused expression with its tail up. It was pure gray stone and very well carved and Midnight scowled at it.

She turned around and saw that the others were way ahead of her. “Whoa! Guys! Wait!” Midnight said as she started to run. Only as she ran, she felt like she wasn’t getting any closer to them and the hallway was only getting longer. She kept running, but soon she gave up. Midnight gasped for breath as she leaned against the wall, sweat running down her face. She looked around to see that the others were gone.

Then she looked back. Midnight sighed and growled her frustrations as she pinched the place between her eyes. There was the cat statue, this time it was predatory, leering at her with malicious intent. She snarled back, accepting its challenge.

—-------

“Shit!” Ember gasped. “Where’s Midnight?” He looked around, not seeing her behind them. “Middie?” He called to her.

“Midnight!” Vera cried, looking around for her as well. The blonde bat pony’s expression, that of sheer panic.

“Hey, Vera, dear, it’s okay, we’ll find her. Don’t worry about it. We just need to start searching.” Tessa held her hand as the hippogryph started looking around the hallway for her. That’s when they heard a very distant voice. “Whoa! Guys! Wait!” This lit up all three of their expressions.

“Midnight!” Ember said as he started back down the hallway where they came from.

Before their very eyes, Tessa and Vera saw Ember disappear into the shadow. One moment, he was running and the next minute, there was nothing. Both of them raised their eyebrows and showed the whites of their eyes.

“Ember!?” They both shouted as they looked around for him. They ran for a few feet but they found no sign of him.

“Where did he go?!” Vera said in a panicky, high pitched whine as she put her hands on her mouth as tears began to well up.

“Vera, get a hold of yourself.” Tessa said in an anxious, whispering tone as she held both of the bat pony’s arms, shaking her slightly. “You need to remember, this is just a virtual reality game. You need only lift your headset and they are all right there.” The birdlike creature said as she pulled the bat pony close and began to pet her blonde mane. “Come on, deep breaths.”

She did as Tessa instructed, taking deep, cleansing breaths as she leaned close into her soft, voluptuous bosom. “Thank you. Sometimes, I get over anxious with these types of games.”

“It’s fine, honey, you just need to remember when to dial it back some. We all have our quirks.” Tessa said as her arms held her tight against her.

“We do? Then what’s your quirk?” Vera asked as she looked up at the taller bird-like girl. They met in a little kiss as Tessa caressed the bat girl’s back, along with her wings. This made Vera’s breath catch in her throat as she felt the stimulation run through her sensitive body.

“I get horny in scary situations.” Tessa whispered to her and ran her tongue over the side of Vera’s purple face, making her quiver. Her trembling became worse as the hippogryph’s hands squeezed her wings softly. She slid her hands down her wings and began to squeeze Vera’s tits. “Ooooo, no bra.” She licked her own beak and smiled at Vera’s cute blushing face. “Good girl.” She purred.

They met in another kiss and Tessa lifted Vera’s shirt. As soon as her nipples were visible, the hippogryph latched on, beginning to suckle. Vera cried out in a lustful moan as she held onto her head. To Tessa’s surprise, the tits she grabbed onto were far larger than she anticipated. She wasn’t sure how she hid these honkers away, but it was hard to keep the full girth of those boobs in her beak as she sucked and licked her nipples.

“Tessa! Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this right now.” Vera whimpered and it was obvious Tessa wasn’t paying attention to her, because then she put the bat pony’s hand down the front of her panties.

—--------

With a mighty roar of defiance, Midnight swung the metal framed chair down into the monstrous, stone cat beast’s skull! In another direct hit, she finally smashed the stone exterior wide open! The monstrosity lay still on the ground. Its deformed limbs no longer mobile and its horrific growl no longer present as she stood. Her chest heaved in great sobs, her hair was frayed beyond current repair, her hands trembled as they finally dropped the chair and her legs could no longer hold her as she dropped to her knees. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she shook all over and her hand went to her muzzle. She clenched her eyes shut as she wept.

“Midnight!” Ember shouted as he came to her, seeing the huge thing that looked like a broken statue of a feline horror. “What the hell?!” Then he looked down to see her frightened eyes turn to him. “Oh, God, Midnight...” He murmured in a very worried tone as he pulled her into an embrace and she began to weep more openly.

“Ummm, Ember? Should I shut the simulation…” Firewire began to ask in Ember’s headset but Ember motioned for him to hold it.

“I’m sorry, Ember,” Midnight said between sobs as she buried her face into his chest and kept weeping harder. “I tried so hard to live up to the legacy of greatness but I can’t.”

“You really know how to put pressure on yourself.” Ember whispered to her as she kept crying into his shirt and keeping herself close to him as he ran his fingers through her mane. “You really don’t understand that you achieved that status a while ago.” He said as he put his lips against her head, kissing the top tenderly.

“What are you talking about? Look at me! I can’t even make it through a stupid horror maze!” She said as she renewed her vigorous weeping.

“Horror has always been your weakness. It’s always been your soft underbelly. Everyone has a weakness, something they’re not nearly cut out for. For me, it’s racing games…” Ember looked off to the side with a sudden scowl.

“You don’t like race cars?” She began to ask before he looked back at her.

“They’re boring as sin, Midnight.” He said in a very clear, matter of fact tone. “Either way, there are plenty of games I’m not good at. The only reason I got so good at some of them is because I played them a ridiculous amount. You can even beat me at some of them.” Ember admitted to her, feeling a bit of relief as this brought a bit of a smile to her face, amid the tears. “It’s not who you can beat, nor is it how well you play the games, it’s about how good it feels to conquer your goals and help others do the same. You know that feeling.”

“Like when I beat you at Xero Shot 2.” Midnight managed, having calmed down quite a bit.

“That was a lucky shot!” Ember said suddenly, growling at her. This drew a bit of a gasp from Midnight. This was not a gasp of fear, but a gasp of surprise intensity, even admiration.

There was a long silence between the two of them as they breathed against one another. Midnight connected her lips to his as she stood up straight. She was only a few inches taller than him and was able to hold him as they kissed, closing her eyes. At first, Ember was startled by it, but soon, he melted into the kiss. Whether she meant it or not, the amorous embrace lasted a good long while. Their warmth connected, as did their tongues for one moment. Then Midnight pulled back, her eyes wide as if she woke from a daydream.

“Oh! I’m…” She cleared her throat and backed away from him. “I’m sorry, Ember. I was…”

“Hey.” Ember took her hands and pulled her back to him. With what seemed like a natural reaction, they kissed once more for just a brief instant. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re doing better.”

“Oh, shit.” Midnight said, then checked the game interface from her wrist, seeing the time was still going. “We literally just left Tessa and Vera alone! We need to finish!” Midnight said. As she saw he was about to remind her of what he just said, she cut him off. “Win or lose, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying!” She composed herself immediately and pulled him along. “Come on!”

—---------------

“And that makes six.” Prisma said as she held up the last book. The rest of the room was partially melted into the ground. Shelves and furniture were halfway sunk into the wood floor, as well as the lower half of Mila, who had a sizable butt imprinted into it. The entire thing stopped melting as they took the book and the hotel had gone back to being a normal structure on their end. “Wow, that was spazmatic and ulcer inducing, but it was quite fun!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, dear.” Night Coder said in a purr. “I hope you’ll enjoy our new game that you guys will be helping us with.”

“I’m sure we will!” Prisma said as she passed the book onto Dusk, who put it away with a sigh.

“Okay, well I’m late for my normal workout routine.” Twin said as she stretched a bit. “I should get going. Tell me how things turn out.”

“Yeah, I need to go help mum at her bakery in an hour. So I’ll bug out too.” Mila said as Night Coder came back on the communication device.

“Umm, don’t you want to talk to the other team and see how they’re–” Before she finished with her sentence, both Twin and Mila got out of the game, pulling their VR visors off of their eyes.

Both of them were met with the image of Firewire being balls deep within Night as she bounced up and down on his lap. His big, dark blue cock reaching deep into her pussy. Both of them were bottomless and Night’s pink nippled tits were visible as her shirt was pulled up over them.

“...doing?” Night Coder finished and paused her bouncing.

Mila blushed and looked away from them while Twin blushed and gave them a very flirtatious smile.

“They’re fucking, aren’t they?” Dusk asked from inside the game and both Mila and Twin said “yes” at the same time. “I knew it.” He smiled over at Prisma, who blushed.

“So, were you wanting to go check on the other team?” Prisma asked as they helped one another across the thoroughly uneven floors. As they got to the hallway, Dusk grabbed her by the hand and pulled her against the wall. “Oh…” She said in a breathless voice and pressed her lips into his as he wrapped his arms around her. Prisma’s breath caught in her throat as the purple bat pony explored her entire back with his hands.

“The answer is no, by the way.” He said as he gave her a small break from the kiss.

“Yeah, I figured.” She managed to get that much out before Dusk engulfed her lips in his own. He held her close as his fingers explored her delicate rainbow mane and she whimpered into his mouth. After just a few more moments of rubbing their lips and tongues together, they were left out of breath and holding onto one another. “We should probably tell the others.”

“We will, I just don’t know when will be a good time.” Dusk whispered back to her and gave her yet another amorous kiss. She melted back into it for a moment before breaking the kiss and leaning her forehead onto his as they cuddled against the hallway wall for a moment. Then the bat pony went still. This drew a puzzled look from her.

“What is it?” She asked, then she heard it. There was someone that sounded like they were either scared, in pain or having a very rough orgasm. After just a moment of looking around the musky, dark surroundings that were still creepy, but noticeably less so since they actually beat the game. They followed the sound as best they could, going down the hallway to the clearing between perpendicular hallways. What they found gave them extreme pause.

Dusk saw Vera, a very naked Vera on the ground with her newly introduced hippogryph “friend”, Tessa. Both of them were intertwined, sitting face to face with their legs wrapped around one another. Their pussies rubbed together as their hips moved against the other and their tongues were connected as they kissed with such passion and Vera whined in her familiar high pitch as she raked through her third orgasm. The bird-like woman reached down and squeezed her ass as she began to grin and grind harder against her wet, throbbing cunt.

“Can you cum again?” Tessa asked, starting to grind even harder, making Vera cry out in a higher pitch. The purple bat pony girl was obviously too taken by her raw sexual energy as juice gushed from her with such ridiculous regularity. “Cum for me again, my sexy little pony.”

“Dear sweet mercy.” Prisma said without even thinking about it. This caused both Vera and Tessa to stop what they were doing. The carpet beneath them was visibly damp at this point and Vera’s face began to redden to alarming levels.

“Oh, uuhh…” Tessa said, staggering her words very hard as she tried to come up with something, but the visage of both of them with their tits pressed together and pussies kissing totally defeated anything she could ever come up with. “We got… bored?”

“Vera… just wow.” Dusk said as he closed his eyes and pinched in between them in a sigh. “You’re just lucky I’m the one that caught you and not…”

“Holy SHIIIIIIIIII—” Midnight seemingly appeared out of nowhere with an incredulous Ember. Everyone’s eyes widened and blood pressures went through the roof. “---IIIIIIIIIIT!” The taller bat pony glared at her sister, then turned an even more evil eye toward the hippogryph, who began to sweat.

A very heavy tensioned silence covered the hallway. That was when Prisma leaned over toward Dusk and whispered. “Were Vera’s tits always that big?” Causing him to give her a weird look.

—------

“Well,” Night Coder said as she sat there, her pussy still filled with hot semen, unbenounced to the rest of them. “I’m glad you all enjoyed our little game. It was a bit harsh in some areas, I’ll admit.”

“I told you the bathtub thing was a little much.” Firewire said, causing her to pat his cheek with a sneer, making him snicker.

“But at least now we have a definitive answer to who should be the leader in your group!” Night said in something of an excited voice as they all sat in the lounge. All of them had lunch in front of them from one of their favorite sandwich places.

“Well, hold on.” Ember began to say, but Midnight stopped him, shaking her head.

“No, this time, it’s true.” Midnight said, finishing her daisy sandwich as she wadded up the package. She looked over at Prisma, who wore an incredulous expression. “I have to admit, I failed at this. Yes, I really suck at horror games. My weakness in this genre is a liability that I can’t ignore and that showed in my performance. You carried out the mission and finished in a very surprisingly fast amount of time.” Midnight said this, causing literally everyone else in the room to drop their jaws. The tall bat pony sighed, obviously not comfortable exposing such a raw nerve. “I will accept third in command.”

Everyone cocked their heads to the side or widened their eyes.

“Did you just say third?” Twin asked, literally rubbing whatever was in her ear to make sure she was really listening. “Who would be second?”

Midnight motioned toward Ember. The look on his face made it obvious he was not privy to this either. “He is a born leader and he has even led me through some of the harder times in games. Not to mention he defeated my mom by himself when he was very young.” She said, a jealous, sour expression crossing her face as she glared at him, making him swallow a large portion of his sandwich. “I decided I’m not going to bring the team down because of my own hubris. I’ve been acting like a stubborn, narcissistic child because of my own high opinion of myself.” She closed her eyes and turned her head off to the side, her face turning a deep red.

“Thank you, Midnight. That means a lot to me.” Prisma said with a genuine smile on her face. “We are going to rule this league with an iron hoof.” She said with a growing grin. “Now, for our next order of business…”

“Yes.” Midnight said, turning a raging glare toward both Vera and Tessa, whose petrified expression began to grow at the bat pony woman who only seemed to grow in size. “Next order…”

“No, not that.” Dusk said as he connected his phone to the projector unit on the wall, which turned on and brought up the image of their message list. At first, it looked like just a normal list of e-mails, that was until you look to see that all of the visible messages were on the same date, and there were fifty. One automatic reload brought up yet another batch of them.

“Did we just receive five more messages in that one minute?” Ember asked, making Dusk nod.

“All of them are either from the Tree of Death or regarding our rivalry with them.” Dusk said, scrolling down to the next page, showing that the next page was from earlier that same day. “It’s looking like there’s at least five Hooftubers who are reporting on it with a lot of anticipation. Our silence has actually magnified the anticipation.”

“Alright, I’ve had enough of this.” Prisma said, looking to Ember and Midnight, who both nodded with a grim look on their faces. Then she looked at the rest of her team and their guests, who looked on with similar expressions. “I think it’s time we prick this thorn in our sides.”